


the shrike

by TheRaven



Category: Silent Hill (2006), Silent Hill (Video Game Series), Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012)
Genre: Gen, Sort Of, first draft final draft, no beta readers no editing we die like men, pyramid head saves the day, the premise is crack but the execution is serious, weird surreal vague violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28023717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRaven/pseuds/TheRaven
Summary: The Creature that will be called Pyramid Head is awakened early by the sound of a child's screams.
Relationships: Alessa Gillespie & Pyramid Head
Kudos: 15





	the shrike

**Author's Note:**

> awhile back, i was watching a stream of a silent hill game (3, maybe?), and someone in the chat put forth the idea of pyramid head coming to alessa's rescue when her mother first attempts to burn her. my brain being what it is, i had to figure out what would happen if one were to take this idea seriously, and now we have this...whatever this thing is.

The child screams, and deep in the heart of Silent Hill, the Creature that will be called Pyramid Head _stirs_.

With great effort, it tears each of its limbs from the primordial red of the Town, muscles gleaming and exposed among half-formed flesh. Then it  _ pulls _ until there comes the screech of metal on metal and the Creature lands on unsteady feet bearing its full weight for the first time. The helmet hits the ground with a thunk immediately after, bending the Creature’s spine almost double until it can work out the movements necessary to raise its head.

Then the child screams again, and the Creature lumbers toward the source of the sound, trailing viscera in its wake until the skin finishes knitting itself together and the Creature is more or less whole. 

The Creature does not see with eyes, but each heavy, agonized step carries it true. Its hand reaches out and grasps a nearby pipe as it feels its way along a half-rotten wall, a weapon as good as any other in its hands. It will show them the consequences of their transgression, these souls so steeped in filth that have awakened the Creature before its time has come. They seek to corrupt that which is Divine and drag it, incomplete and suffering, into their own world, with the child as its vessel.

The child’s frantic heartbeat pounds louder and louder in its helmet as it approaches, drowning out the cries of her tormentors. Heat registers dimly, a minor irritation while the Creature strikes down the condemned with the pipe and crushes their soft, wet bodies in its fists. They cry out for God in their final moments, but there is only the Creature here to judge them.

When they are quiet, the Creature moves toward the child, whose heartbeat still races and who still seems to be screaming. It drops the pipe and picks her up, as gently as its newly-formed hands can manage, and feels the heat again.

The heat is how they tormented her, it realizes. Her body is soft, like theirs, and does not protect her. She will die if she stays here, and the twisted, malformed god inside her will be dragged screaming and suffering into this world.

It withdraws, deep into the heart of Silent Hill, with the child in its arms.

The Creature does not know how to mend the child’s body, but it knows that the place where it awoke is quiet, and calm, and cool. It returns to the primordial red, listening to the child’s heartbeat grow slow and even, and waits to know what will become of her. 

Gradually, the god inside of her fades, leaving something sharp and cold in its wake as it slips free of the botched spell. Not blasphemous, not filthy, but something that lingers even as the Town’s heart cradles her and restores her flesh. The Creature listens now and then to her heartbeat, separate from the pulse of the Town, as she heals.

_Asleep_.

Time does not pass in the primordial red the way it does Above, but it does pass. And there comes a time when the child awakes, whole but not well. She screams and thrashes until the heart of the Town releases her from her cocoon, but the sound dies when she hits the ground with a dull thud. Ragged gasps replace the screams, and then sobs. The Creature listens, and waits.

After a time, the child tries to stand, leaning heavily on the translucent wall of the Creature’s cocoon. A small gasp, and she stumbles away and back to her knees. The Creature does not try to break itself free yet, but it turns its great metal head toward her to indicate that it is awake.

“What--Where am I?” the child asks hoarsely.

The Creature cannot speak, and it does not usually want to, but it cannot deny that speech would be a useful tool in this situation. It makes a slow, sweeping gesture that she does not seem to understand, because she repeats the question with panic audible in her voice, and then--

“Am I in Hell?” she asks, barely above a whisper.

This, the Creature can answer easily enough. It uses its hands to drag its great metal head from side to side, distending the translucent cocoon but not quite breaking through it yet. Its time has still not come, though by now, the Creature suspects that its raison d’etre has changed somewhat because of its interference with the child’s torment. It will try not to interfere further, to twist its purpose beyond recovery. It will answer the child’s questions, and then it will sleep until it is needed.

And yet.

The child does not speak again for a long time. She sinks to the ground with her back to the Creature’s cocoon, making small, strange sounds that the Town eventually gives a name: _laughter_. Not sounds of agony, the Town clarifies, though her shoulders shake and she curls in on herself as they issue from her mouth. It feels like pain, though not entirely, and the child laughs until she has to gasp for breath again.

She turns, then, and places a hand flat against the Creature’s cocoon where its metal helmet stretches the wall thin. It cannot see her face, but it feels the tremor in her fingers and hears the small, quick breaths she takes as she looks at it. A scraping sound as the child gets to her feet, still leaning on the wall of its cocoon, and she leaves a hand there even after she has stopped shaking.

“Are you...stuck in there?” she asks hoarsely.

The Creature drags its great metal helmet from side to side, but carefully, so as not to knock her off her feet again. She makes another of those “laughter” sounds, but with less pain. No fear, now, either. In fact, The Creature cannot identify the emotions the child exhibits. The Town supplies the name “relief,” but this does little to resolve its confusion. It will have to wait for the child to explain, or be satisfied with not understanding.

“Can you come out?”

Out of the cocoon? Of course it can. But why?

“I’m--it’s lonely out here,” she adds as though she can hear its thoughts.

Lonely.That is a word it understands. Curiously, the feelings emanating from the child do not include loneliness, but her apprehension is close enough for it to dismiss the discrepancy and seriously consider complying. She is not its Purpose, but she is here, an innocent in front of the Town’s still-unfinished avatar of Judgment, and she is again requesting aid.

The Creature turns the request over in its mind, uneasy. Its time is coming, but not yet at hand, and the child could become a distraction. Perhaps it should not have brought her here at all, should have ended her suffering instead and come back to sleep alone. Perhaps.

Before it has fully decided on a course of action, the Creature finds one of its hands drifting toward the child, distending the wall of the cocoon until the wall gives way. The hand comes to rest against the side of her face, half-covering an eye and curling around to the back of the head. The child laughs again and removes the hand, clutching it in both of hers and leaning back. And at her urging, the Creature slowly emerges from the cocoon until it towers over her.

“Oh, wow,” she says in a very quiet voice. “You’re tall.”

It is Justice. Consequence. Judgment. It looms over all.

“Thank you,” she says. “For saving me. I thought I was going to die. My mommy--”

Her breath hitches, and she’s trembling again.

“I don’t know why she--Why did they use me for the ritual? I’m only _seven_.”

They were sinners, full of pride and haste and cruelty. Why they did what they did is none of the Creature’s concern. They have been Judged and punished accordingly. Was this not enough for the child as well?

Gently, it places a hand on the top of her head. The hairs there are still slick from her time in the cocoon, but they stick up straight from her scalp in places like-- _like a hairbrush_ , the Town supplies, though the metaphor clarifies nothing. _Like a spooked rat, then?_ The creature shakes its great metal head as though to dislodge whatever allows the Town to keep up its unceasing and unwelcome internal commentary.

The child starts, taking a half-step back that almost has her falling again. The creature catches her by the wrist and, after a moment of indecision, scoops her into its arms. No more risk of falling now. Her small body goes rigid, as if expecting violence, but when it does not come, she relaxes again. Only the frantic flutter of her pulse lets it know that she is not truly comfortable like this, but even that is already slowing--until she bumps her head against the underside of its helmet-- _and she looks up_ , the town adds--and her pulse skyrockets again.

“What are you?”

It is Judgment.

“I thought--” Her hands feel along the underside of the helmet until they reach the edge where metal and malformed flesh meet. “I thought you were...a person…”

The Creature tilts its helmet upward and lowers her in its arms until she drops her hands again and mumbles an apology. Her fragile fingers did not, could not hurt it, but the feeling was not one it wished to prolong. She apologizes again and clasps her hands together as if to make sure they will not cause further trouble.

“Does it hurt?”

Existence is pain. To what part of it exactly is the child referring?

“The, um, the helmet. It looks, um. It looks like it’s squeezing your head.”

Apparently the child can understand the Creature’s thoughts, or at least the general nature of them. This is not necessarily a bad thing _yet_ , but it could be. Its Purpose is not tied to her, should not be tied to her, cannot be tied to her. It knows this, and it knows what should be done.

Gently, it sets her down on the ground, careful not to remove its support before she regains her footing. She is whole now, and that means it is time for her to go back where she came from. She is no longer the Creature’s concern. The child makes a small noise as if to protest, but she does not resist when the Creature nudges her north, toward the veil between the heart of the Town and its more corporeal counterpart.

_ No coat? This time of year? _

The creature does not know what “time of year” means, but it can still sense the chastisement, and its own ire starts to well up. The Town had clothed the child when it healed her; was that garment not enough to protect her from whatever lay outside the primordial red? Either way, the Creature cannot do anything about it anyway. Let the Town clothe the child more appropriately when she leaves.

“I can find something at my house,” the child replies, though whether to the Town or the Creature is unclear.

They finally reach the veil, which is viscous and cold and flakes like ash to the touch. The child prods it tentatively with one finger, but nothing happens aside from a gentle yielding and distension of the barrier, not unlike the cocoons she and the Creature had emerged from earlier. She reaches for the Creature’s hand as if to pull it along with her, but the Creature steps back and makes a sweeping gesture toward the veil. 

“Oh.”

Still, she hesitantly pats the back of the Creature’s hand, the closest part of it she can reach.

“Thank you again. For saving me.”

The Creature gestures again to the veil.

“I guess this is goodbye, then.”

The Creature gives up and turns to leave.

“Okay. Bye.”

The child’s voice echoes in the Creature’s head as it makes its way back to its cocoon. 

Screaming. _Again_.

The Creature that will be called Pyramid Head wakes once more, and its time has still not come. Confusion gives way to fury as it recognizes the source of the screaming, coming from a different part of Silent Hill this time, but issuing from the mouth of the same innocent. The Creature tears out of the cocoon and lands heavily on its feet, already laser-focused on the child. But why was she screaming again?

_ Missed a few roaches last time. Eyes would have been useful. _

The Creature does not dwell on the Town’s unusual chattiness and instead lumbers ahead as quickly as its twisted form will allow. It had let the child go alone into Silent Hill, and this was the result. Foul souls had taken this innocent again and, from the sounds of things, were attempting to finish what their fallen brethren had started.

Near the veil, the Creature’s hand brushes a piece of metal that feels different to its surroundings. Pausing just long enough to grasp it, the Creature finds that this metal is attached to a long, wide blade that drags behind it as it tries to move forward. This weapon feels right in its hands, but it is slower now, slow enough that it briefly considers dropping the blade altogether.

_ The Great Knife is your weapon. Wield it. _

The Creature bursts through the veil, the Great Knife throwing sparks where it scrapes against the ground. The screaming is much louder now, and the Creature can make out words like “help” and “please” and “save me.” They are a spell that it cannot resist, even though it can feel the words changing something at its core.

Then, without warning, a thunderous roar. A moment later, a shockwave nearly knocks the Creature off its feet. What did they do to the child this time? The Creature staggers upright and finds that the Great Knife is lighter now.

She’s making that laughter sound when the Creature finally finds her. It’s the same as the first one she had made in its presence, nearly hysterical. There is no smell of burning flesh, no acrid smoke, no heat. Just a child laughing in the middle of a large, quiet room.

The Creature is not built to move stealthily, but the child does not seem to notice its presence right away. Even the screech of metal on the cement floor as its Great Knife crosses the threshold into the room doesn’t elicit an audible response. The child just keeps _laughing_.

For the first time in its existence, the Creature feels a pinprick of fear slither down its spine.

Still, it lumbers towards her, and when it gets close enough to cut her down with its weapon, she finally seems to notice its presence. The laughter stops abruptly, replaced by labored breathing. Then, when the Creature stops, just too far away to reach out and touch her, even the breathing slows and grows quiet, and everything is still for an impossibly long moment.

“I killed them,” says the child, as though recounting a mildly interesting fact from a textbook. “They came for me and I killed them all.”

You did.

The Creature does not try to gesture now, when it can feel her power crackling in the air. She knows what it is thinking, what the cultists were thinking as they advanced on her, what the Town itself is thinking now as it watches her. She is the most powerful being in this place, nurtured by the Town itself and the fear and pain she has endured at the hands of its inhabitants. 

Briefly, the Creature wonders if it was wrong to save her in the first place.

_ You’ve made your bed. Now lie in it. _

The child reaches out, takes an unsteady step forward, and collapses into the Creature’s arms. Something shifts then, like piano wire snapping and the ice over a river suddenly giving way. As she sobs, this child broken and re-formed and broken again, she _changes_ things. 

The creature cradles the child in its arms and carries her out of the room, Great Knife forgotten.

And this time, the Creature retreats into its cocoon with her. 

They will sleep, and they will dream, and when it is time, they will awaken.

And the Creature that is Guardian will take its place at Alessa’s side.

As it should be.


End file.
